Preparation
by Adgee
Summary: This takes place before Earl Brooks became the Thumbprint Killer, and during his wife's pregnancy.


He chose her based on the color of her nail polish. It was a sickening orange-pink color that had chipped around the edges. It had never been sealed, and he could see indentations from where she'd pressed her teeth into the paint. She was standing in front of him in the check-out line at the grocery store: he had asparagus for his wife, she had a collection of peanut butter, chips, pasta, waxy-looking fruit, soda-pop, and olives. Earl studied the last-minute knick-knacks and candy, watching the woman from the corners of his eyes. He picked up a candy bar. She paid by check, and he was lucky when she tilted it in his direction to fill it out at an angle.

"You'll need those numbers," Marshall reminded. Earl agreed with a soft 'mmm.' He filed the nine digit routing number into his short term memory along with her name and the name of her bank, all printed clearly at the top of the check. Margaret Middleton. Her name was Margaret. "Her friends probably call her Margie or Marge. She looks like a Marge." Marshall sounded amused, as if the idea of killing someone named 'Marge' was a joke.

The woman – Margaret, Margie, or Marge -- moved out of line along with her grocery cart. Earl opened his check book and scribbled the woman's information on an unused record page before extracting enough cash to pay for the asparagus and his candy bar.

Marshall was smug. "Marge cost us four dollars and twelve cents."

-----

Earl Brooks' wife was five-months pregnant at the time. Earl had spent the time since the stick had turned blue feeling something between shock, excitement, and dismay. Emma, on the other hand, had taken to pregnancy with a strange contentment.

"Kids are bad news, Earl. They get in the way." Marshall didn't have anything good to say about Emma's pregnancy and he couldn't entirely blame him. "You're going to regret this."

"I know. I know. But Emma wants to have a baby. Besides, a wife and child... that's a normal life. They'd never expect..."

"It's always the ones you don't expect, isn't it Earl?" The two of them had shared a chuckle over that one.

When Earl got home from the store Emma was waiting for him, tucked comfortably in their shared bed with a pillow between her legs. Her belly looked swollen and unreal, curving out from her body and looking like it would burst out of the shirt she was wearing.

"Oh, honey. You're home. Did you get the asparagus?" Earl walked over to give her a kiss, glasses slipping dangerously down his nose when he bent. He stood and pushed them back up, adjusting nervously.

"It's cooking. It should be done soon. How are you feeling?" She scooted over on the mattress so that he could sit down next to her. He sat and smoothed out his slacks before smiling down at his wife. She pulled his hand onto her stomach which forced him to turn at an almost uncomfortable angle. She grinned impishly up at him.

"I feel good. C'mere." He turned as far as the position would allow and leaned down to kiss her. Emma wound her fingers in his short hair and pulled. Soon they were tangled up in bed, and he couldn't ignore the reality of her stomach. It got between them and he held her from behind, kissing her neck and shoulder, leaving little bruised marks. Marshall was there with them, watching and whispering encouragement.

By the time they had finished the asparagus was long done.

-----

Once Earl had Margaret's (or Marge's or Margie's) name and banking information it wasn't hard to find out more. She wasn't a rich woman, with less then $1,500 in her checking account and nothing in savings. Her deposits changed from month to month, indicating a fluctuating schedule. Further digging revealed that she was the waitress at a local diner he'd never been to. Perfect.

Two days after he'd first seen her, Earl Brooks watched Margaret Middleton get out of her Ford and hurry into work. He sat out in his car and watched her work through the big windows decorated with badly painted breakfast food. Large, yellow letters covered half of one window: 'Breakfast Special $2.99!'

"Jesus she smiles a lot." Earl tilted the rear view mirror so that he could see Marshall stretched out in the back. He was grinning.

"It's her job, Marshall. She needs the tips." Marshall snorted as if it was amusing.

"And she talks a lot. That means she's probably a screamer. We'll need to watch that if we don't want to get caught."

"I know. Don't worry." Earl tilted his head into the side of the car, tracing his fingers over the leather steering wheel. They would wait the long hours through her shift, watching her work. Thanks to her odd schedule it would take several night's of surveillance for them to solidify their plan. It didn't bother him. This was all part of how things worked.

Mr. Brooks was a patient man.

-----

Margaret lived in an apartment complex. Apartments always posed a problem thanks to nosy neighbors and typically thin walls.

"Maybe being caught is easier than having a baby," Marshall suggested, a sneer in his tone. He always knew how to push Earl's buttons.

"Shut up. We're not going to get caught. That's why we're doing our research." He took note of which parking spot was hers – #44 – and the apartment number: 2A on the ground floor.

He spent several hours watching lights turn on and off in her apartment, and then the final darkness of bedtime. The next morning he would look up the blue prints of her unit: most apartment complexes had exact floor plans for each apartment. It would only take a little bit of research to find out the layout.

-----

Earl picked a Tuesday night: Margaret (Marge, Margie) typically came in late on Tuesdays and didn't work on Wednesday, so no one would realize that she was missing until at least Thursday. He waited until her upstairs neighbor left his apartment – he had a Tuesday-night meeting of some sort that kept him out from 8 – 10 PM. – and then went to her door. The lock was simple and it only took a couple of moments before he'd let himself (and Marshall) in. He made sure to lock the door behind him.

He found himself in a cramped living room that barely fit a couch, television, and several bookshelves crammed full of Real Murder stories.

"Ironic, isn't it? Maybe they'll write one about her." Marshall laughed and Earl smiled; the humor was not lost on him.

Earl moved through the house, touching nothing even though his hands were gloved. It was best to leave as little evidence as possible. Plus, he didn't want to disturb anything and alert Margaret of an intruder when she came home. He left the living room and stepped into her bedroom. Like the living room it was small, and the floor space was dominated by a Queen-sized bed. She'd barely managed to fit a dresser along one wall. He could see the awful pink-orange nail polish sitting half-empty on top

Earl picked his way through the room and opened a door on the opposite wall. He stepped into the bathroom and stood in the darkness, leaving the door open a crack so that he could see through it and into the bedroom. Now he only had to wait.

He remained serious and absolutely still... Even Marshall was quiet while they stood in darkness. They both knew that they were about to get what they wanted. _Needed_. Margaret would come home, they would kill her, and the urge would be satiated for just a little longer. Then they'd start all over again.

Margaret came home at 9:48 PM exactly. Earl could hear her keys jangling and then the slight crack of the front door as it opened and closed. He heard the dull thump of her purse hitting the kitchen counter and the twin thuds of her shoes hitting the wall when she kicked them off. Earl never lost track of her as she moved around the living room and stepped into the bedroom.

He was about to step out of the bathroom when Marshall cautioned him to wait. Just a little longer. Earl remained where he was, leaning forward just a little so that he could watch her through the crack in the door.

She flitted in and out of view, tugging her clothes off and tossing them to the ground. Margaret-Marge-Margie started with her top and then inched her skirt down, leaving her in a pair of ill-matched undergarments. Earl watched as she let her hair down from its bun, letting it fall over her shoulders in tangled auburn curls.

"Great piece of ass. I'll really enjoy _doing_ her," Marshall preened.

Margaret-Marge-Margie crooked her arms behind her, unhooking her bra. She slipped it over her arms and her heavy breasts fell. She turned toward the bathroom door and Earl drew back a little so that she wouldn't see the glint of his eyes. She paused for a moment as if she'd noticed movement and Earl breathed shallowly through his mouth, muscles bunched in case she bolted. After a tense moment she seemed to shrug it off and she stepped out of her panties.

The woman began to move toward the bathroom door forcing Earl to pull back against the wall, stepping sideways to make room for the door as she pushed it open. There was a delicious silence as she turned and saw him, and for a moment their eyes locked. Hers weren't as pretty as he'd imagined: they were a muddy brown-green color.

Earl lunged forward, shoving a hand into her hair and jerking her head back. She tried to scream but he'd already placed a glove over her mouth.

"Don't scream," he whispered in her ear, being careful that his lips did not touch skin. Margaret jerked frantically as Earl extracted his hand from her hair, holding her head back at a horrible angle with only the hand over her mouth, pushing her jaw up. When he brought his other hand forward for the second time it was holding a knife so sharp that when he pulled it across her taut throat it took several moments for the bleeding to start. Earl shoved her forward so that her body toppled over the lip of the tub, blood spilling across the floor like scarlet paint. That would be a bitch to clean up.

Marshall's laugh echoed through the small room as Earl tilted his head back, taking in deep gulps of musty bathroom air. He felt sick and exhilarated. Energy tingled up his spine and along each digit, electrifying him. He twisted in the bathroom, eyes rolling and then fixing securely on the woman in the tub. He had learned early on that he couldn't bask in the pleasure for too long.

She had landed with her face against the side of the bathtub, her legs twisted ridiculously over the edge. He grimaced and stepped carefully through her blood.

"Don't forget the foot prints," Marshall warned as Earl leaned over to rearrange her. He pulled Margaret-Marge-Margie up and resituated her so that she looked as if she were laying in the tub. He left a smear of blood on the water dial as he turned it on.

It took over an hour to bathe her, cleaning her skin and letting the blood drain from her neck. He sponged blood away from the gash, cleaning it thoroughly. Halfway through he stopped to find a bottle of acetone so that he could remove the remainder of her orange-pink nail polish.

When he had washed her Earl plugged the tub and let it fill. The water was slightly pink, but he could see her naked body through the water: breasts floating just a bit, wide hips and thick thighs, freckles and imperfections magnified by the water, and the sloping curve of a newly pregnant belly.

-----

It took him hours to finish. When he had Margaret-Marge-Margie was left in a natural pose, looking as though her neck had spontaneously split itself while she was taking a bath. He'd cleaned the bathroom floor with bleach and then vacuumed carefully. On the way home he wiped the knife and disposed of it in deep water. When leaving he had taken the vacuum bag and anything else that might incriminate him: in his workshop he stripped and shoved everything into the kiln, incinerating it.

When Earl finally got home his wife was asleep. He pulled on his pajamas and crawled into bed silently. Emma was sleeping on her back with a pillow under her knees, blankets pushed down around her her hips. Earl inched down so that he could lean his head low, just above Emma's stomach. He held his breath, listening for the tiny flicker of life inside of her. He turned his head, lips barely brushing her stomach. They tickled against the silk of her pajamas when he spoke, softly so that no one could hear him.

"Don't be like me. Please. _Please_. Don't be like me."


End file.
